The invention relates to filling heads for filling machines used in the bottling industry. In particular, the invention relates to filling heads arranged for filling containers.
Filling machines comprise a rotating carousel on which a plurality of filling heads are mounted, each one of which is arranged to fill a respective container.
Each filling head comprises a plurality of solenoid valves that drive actuators arranged to regulate at each filling step a flow of a filling product and a flow of a service fluid.
Filling heads are known comprising a box element positioned on the rotating carousel, above at a certain distance of, and substantially at each filling head.
The box element is designed for receiving a first electronic card and a plurality of solenoid valves connected to the first electronic card by means of electric cables.
The solenoid valves are controlled by the first electronic card and are arranged to drive actuators positioned on the filling heads.
This is possible by means of a plurality of pneumatic cables that connect each solenoid valve to a respective actuator.
The filling parameters and the control signals that are necessary for correctly operating the solenoid valves are gathered in a second electronic card that is positioned on the ground and that communicates the command signals to each first electronic card of a corresponding filling head by means of infrared-ray transmitting means.
A drawback of the known filling heads relates to the constructional complexity that entails great costs to be sustained for the purchase, installation and maintenance of the electric and the pneumatic cabling that is necessary for driving respectively the solenoid valves and the actuators.
In fact, such cabling is particularly costly and the assembly thereof requires a series of slow and laborious operations that entail a further increase of cost.
A further drawback relates to the significant length of the pneumatic cabling between solenoid valves and actuators.
This entails delays in the response times of the actuators with consequent difficulty in setting up the filling head.
An object of the invention is to improve the filling heads for filling machines.
A further object is to make filling heads that are easy to be made and have limited overall dimensions.
Another object is to obtain filling heads that have electric cabling and/or pneumatic cabling of particularly reduced dimensions with consequent money saving.
According to the invention, an apparatus is provided comprising a body of a filling head provided with actuators controlled by a control logic unit, said control logic unit being mounted on said body, said body being provided with seats for receiving solenoid valves arranged for operating the opening and/or the closing of said actuators, wherein said body comprises passages for electric connecting elements between said control logic unit and said actuators and/or said solenid valves, as the case may be, said electric connecting elements comprising electric contact elements connected to said control logic unit.
Owing to this aspect of the invention it is possible to obtain filling heads of limited cost. In fact, the filling heads according to the invention may incorporate possible solenoid valves arranged for controlling the actuators, the actuators, and conduits arranged for placing the solenoid valves in communication with the actuators.
In this way connecting cabling is no longer necessary.
This furthermore enables the filling head to have particularly reduced overall dimensions and to be easy to carry out.